this is the seed of the idea of haveing rules for the massive space ships that we have gone into a frenzie about, it started as a way of sorting ships into more defined classes, but with some help this could turn into a way of haveing fair(ish) combat with large SHIPs and smaller sloops and frigates.

you will need:lots of money or bricks.
lots of space.
time.
a measureing device, unlike in brikwars this wont need to bend since your working in the emptyness of space, and everything(or nearly everything) will be in streight lines.
it would be more easy/fun if you had:lots and lots of bricks to make two fleets so that your opponent doesn't have to lug theres over to your place.
a forklife, makes moveing cruisers and battleships easyer.
a tap measure: think about how much time it takes to measure the lengh of 200 studs with a ruler takes, now think about how many times bigger the battle space can be.

NOTE:cruisser can have a small hanger that can house a sloop or group of fighters without haveing to be a carrier.

special sub-catagoriescarriers would be lightly armed with weapon size being limited to half its size rateing, and should be able to hold at least one or a group of swarmers (small fighters designed to fit in tiny spaces)
the only thing you have to pay to convert a normal craft into a carrier is the weapon limit.
there size would be rated by
"small"(frigate sized)
"median" (destroyer sized)
"large" (cruiser sized-althought cruisers can start with a hanger they can only have one, a large carrier should have a main hanger capable of holding a frigate or a small carrier.)
"giant"(battle-ship and up)

hanger bayssmall: total (floor) area of about (give or take about 70)450 studs
median: total (floor) area of about 650 studs
large: total (floor) area of about 750 studs
giant: as much as you want.

fighters, swarmers and shuttles.fighters its basically the size you want it(with in reason) use the brikwars plane rules for it.
swarmera tiny craft designed to fit in small spaces they normally have folding wings and some can fit into 4x7 floor spaces.(use brikwars plane rules)
they have verylittle room for fuel and so can only fly for 4 turns(not inclueding landing or takeoff turn) the shortness of range means they should be normally used as defence and to take shots for the ships. (use a marker of some sort that can be removed to represent fuel) they move 5" faster than the ship that launched them( so one launched from a ship with a max-speed of 30" would move 35" per turn)
shuttlesthease are used for transport, they can have folding wings, and are lightly armed.

now I've got to come up a with a balenced stat system, yay, sounds about as fun as listening to a talk about the affects of daffadills on the nearby soil.
TO BE CONTIUNED.
to do list:
docking
command decks
ship to ship combat.
sheilds

Last edited by muffinman42 on Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:41 am, edited 6 times in total.

the idea is you have mabey one destoryer and mabey 2 frigates, only massive battle would have battle-ships.
the problem is weapons, normal rule of twice the lengh is stupid since that gives each frigate 200inchs of weapons.
battle-ship and star-destroy ill reduce to 150inchs.

Birdman has a logical and sober point, and I humbly believe that all logical and sober points should be taken, mulled over, and finally discarded into the nearest supernova. I mean really, this is pretty much my dream battle. I can see why people build micro-scale (for obvious practicality), but I can never ever see myself dumping precious bricks into building things that I could knock over with a flick from my pinkie. Yes it would use a lot of bricks, but what Lego fan would say no to more briks? Power to you Muffinman.

As for weapons rules, since the battleship and star destroyer would be limited to their length in weapons, how about giving all ships their length in weapons? Maybe 1.5 times their length?

* Assault Carriers use a conventional Hulls (when the cheaper alternative would be to use a specialised carrier Hull, lighter conventional Hulls can't be used due to stress tolerance blah, blah games mechanics blah, blah.) and fit a typical carriers accompaniment of fighter bays. The rest of the hull is dedicated to systems and weapons but mainly armour. The object of an assault carrier is to arrive in amongst heavy defences and to launch fighters and leave before being destroyed.

Ok, these are from a space fleet campaign game I used to run. The numbers after the Ship Class have been included ONLY to give an example of scale. YOU DO NOT ASSUME THEY ARE MEANT AS STUD SCALE, OK?!?

* Assault Carriers use a conventional Hulls (when the cheaper alternative would be to use a specialised carrier Hull, lighter conventional Hulls can't be used due to stress tolerance blah, blah games mechanics blah, blah.) and fit a typical carriers accompaniment of fighter bays. The rest of the hull is dedicated to systems and weapons but mainly armour. The object of an assault carrier is to arrive in amongst heavy defences and to launch fighters and leave before being destroyed.

Ok, these are from a space fleet campaign game I used to run. The numbers after the Ship Class have been included ONLY to give an example of scale. YOU DO NOT ASSUME THEY ARE MEANT AS STUD SCALE, OK?!?

Anyway, hope this helps

Actually, Star Wars is a very good reference if you're making a space combat game. Just do everything in the EXACT OPPOSITE way that it's shown on Star Wars, and you'll probably get things right most of the time.

fighters (bombers are specially built fighters meant to carry weapons)

small fighter 7
medium fighter 14
large fighter 21

as to fighters being able to deploy for a limited time cool concept but unless we modify the base rules for thier movement they are not going to have enough time for attack runs ouside of thier own fleets engagement area. and for general munitions lets say this is around 30" max this means that base they would have to be able to fly at least 30" a turn to at least match that envelope really whats needed is a very basic ie not time consuming way to mark manuevering rather than turns that a fighter can spend outside a fighter bay, ie if a fighter is told to take up gaurd station approx 40" from fleet to take on incoming fighters/bombers/space torpedoes then they might be out there for more than a few turns and more than likely they will still have to punch for intercept, incase they miss and other reasons. more later

DARN
Heavy Destroyer Class Carrier Hybrid HODGEPODGE
# odds and ends: a motley assortment of things
# patchwork: a theory or argument made up of miscellaneous or incongruous ideas

Ok, Yeah, you could name them anything and I suppose that would still work too, however, it's hard to get people to understand what your on about if you do.

In Star Wars what is a Victory Star Destroyer compared to a Nebelon B Frigate? Or a Corellian Corvette or a Star Destroyer compared to a Mon Cal Cruiser and so on and on (don't reply to this it's rhetorical, I know exactly the difference but I've had to play many PC and RPG games and novels to find out). I'm not having a go at Star Wars, I love Star Wars but it is not a very good ship scale system.

The list above IMO is good. Sort it out between yourselves but I've been listening to some of the ship scales and classes been discussed and you're all making me squirm. I'm no expert on this stuff but I've read a lot of books on conventional naval battles and ships and space opera (Star Wars included) and space age naval battles etc as well as running and playing old style paper and pencil space fleet campaign games (No not Battlefleet Gothic) My point (other than stating my credentials to be taken seriously) is the list above up to the dreadnought class is set in fact, the rest not so much but gives some nice expansion. Star Wars?.. not so much

Ok, Yeah, you could name them anything and I suppose that would still work too, however, it's hard to get people to understand what your on about if you do.

In Star Wars what is a Victory Star Destroyer compared to a Nebelon B Frigate? Or a Corellian Corvette or a Star Destroyer compared to a Mon Cal Cruiser and so on and on I know exactly the difference but I've had to play many PC and RPG games and novels to find out).The list above IMO is good. Sort it out between yourselves but I've been listening to some of the ship scales and classes been discussed and you're all making me squirm. I'm no expert on this stuff but I've read a lot of books on conventional naval battles and ships and space opera (Star Wars included) and space age naval battles etc as well as running and playing old style paper and pencil space fleet campaign games (No not Battlefleet Gothic) My point (other than stating my credentials to be taken seriously) is the list above up to the dreadnought class is set in fact, the rest not so much but gives some nice expansion. Star Wars?.. not so much

same here I've played startrek fleet game I've played aerospace 2 version of battletech ie large ship combat, and I've been a starwars geek for what seems like far to long.

just for those who don't know a "star destroyer" is actually a base battern to a ship ie triangular spear head allowing a maximum of forward firepower, hence HAN reffering to "those big corellian ships...cruisers" cause on corellia everything is bigger (actually it just has one of the galaxys 3 main shipyards and by far probably the most diverse in terms of slips) cause if you think about it if they made a super stardestroyer that means the constrution gantry is larger than it in rough space volume if not actual size

also i include here a cnoped down version or some rules that i made for minifig scale ship combat ignore references to hp unless you wqant to use that system

BrikWars supplement: minifig scale rules and guidlines

New guidlines for weapon creation

Heavy space vessels practically deserve more powerful weapons than any ground based attack system, as such they are only limited by the size of the ship. also as long as you can fit missiles or space torpedoe on or around the hull they do not take up weapon inch length.(why because thier oneshot weapons. ignore this for missiles if your regarding them as being infinite, but not torpedoes)
also remember a space vessel actually has its length x2 in weapon inch lengths with which to include weapons.

New weapons
explosive shell alternate weapon for guns especially useful as a kind of flack ag= as gun note price is per shell
cost----use----range-----dmg-----notes
2x.......ag........ag...........d8.........exp

A note on armor
you can have up to your SL of additional armor per HP section

Shields
Shields provide an all encompasing protective field, protecting from flying debris, missiles laser weapons, flying limbs and yesterdays tuna sandwich. shields are bought in increments of d 10's per 10 cp. to represent the shield generator somewhere on the moc bust be some sort of array that is anounced to be the shield generator. the length of the shield generator is the amount of d10 your allowed to purchase, you may have multiple generators.
the shield generator envelops the ship is a roughly sphericle manner 4 inches from the hull of the ship. this means any minifig planting a bomb on the hull does not get blocked by the shields.

shields are used by the player when an defensive strength role is required ie when attacked. you may use all the shield die in one attack or spread them out over several different attacks, though once they are used up they don't recharge until your next turn.

Up grades and devices

5cp defensive fire: a weapon that has this upgrade can shoot down missiles, and torpedoes. the use rating to shoot down a missile is inverse to size 5=use 2 4=3 3=4 2=1 1=0 thats right class I missiles are launched to closely to the ship for the targeting computers to track. to shoot down torpedoes its the guns use rating.
weapons on defensive fire could not have attacked in the previous turn as they spent thier time ready to stop incoming ordinance and gun size III and below may have defensive fire.

secondary bridge a secondary bridges control infanstructure may be purchased for 20 cp other wise in the event of a bridge hit shield and weapon controls are released to local control nodes.

Ship torpedoes

ship torpedoes are the heaviest weapons known to lego warfare specially build to be ship killers these weapon are every admirals best weapon and worst bane.

a ship torpedoe is priced as a standard MOC. however its small intelligence is only good in steering it towards its announced target and exploding itself once it gets there. dmg is 1d12/inch at a cost of 4 cp per d12, can be shot down by defensive fire weapons and starfighters.

DARN
Heavy Destroyer Class Carrier Hybrid HODGEPODGE
# odds and ends: a motley assortment of things
# patchwork: a theory or argument made up of miscellaneous or incongruous ideas

Those are some pretty good ideas Strana, but I prefer the scientific approach to shields wherein a shield can either block energy weapons or matter projectiles, not both. There was a big discussion about this somewhere here...